The Institute was established in 2009 and was selected as a concessionaire by the Ministry of Labour, Family and Social Affairs at the end of that year, as one of the 14 providers in the network for the provision of employment and vocational rehabilitation services. The following year, also on the basis of a call for tenders from the same Ministry, a social inclusion programme was launched for people with disabilities who had been declared unemployable. Already in 2011, the Institute obtained public funding from the municipality for the implementation of a social welfare programme for the homeless, which was successfully implemented until the end of 2017, the last year also with co-financing from the Ministry of Labour, Family, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities.
As the processes of assessing the working capacities of people with disabilities left more and more people with disabilities with a protective employment decision on the labour market, INTEGRA Institute established the GEA Employment Centre in 2012, which recruited its first people with disabilities in 2013, and more in 2014. The Employment Centre was renamed the GEA Institute in 2018, and continues its successful journey as an independent company.
Since its foundation, the Institute has been closely involved in international projects from the European Union, in particular in lifelong learning and adult education programmes such as Leonardo da Vinci, Grundtvig, and Erasmus+. Until 2021, it has been involved in no fewer than 58 two-year projects, which means an average of five projects per year over the past 12 years.
In January 2015, the Institute moved to new premises at Prešernova cesta 8 in Velenje, and at the beginning of the same year changed its name to INTEGRA Institute, Institute for the Development of Human Potentials, which more clearly describes the Institute’s mission.
